COMMITTING TO A CO-FOUNDER
Our Brand New Identity
Marking change! The design concept took inspiration from journeys and adventure, which is what it’s all about.
Going the distance together and alongside the founders we back.
Finding a co-founder, like marriage, is one of the most important decisions of your life. Unlike marriage, however, there isn’t a litany of self-help literature on finding ‘the one’.
The decision nevertheless colours the quality of your day to day existence. And most importantly, the alchemy of your partnership should be gold, literally and metaphorically in this context.
For the single and searching entrepreneurs out there, we thought it might be useful to share our process and key takeaways.
#1 Try before you buy
We were already friends and knew we liked each other, however, it’s important not to misconstrue liking somebody for a good working relationship. Our first step was to work together for 6 weeks as we would on the fund, looking at deals, having meetings, sharing thoughts. Some working styles simply click, and the sum of the whole becomes more than the individual parts.
#2 Background checks aren’t boring
The world is full of crazy people, of the good and bad variety. Of course you want a partnership and you are tied to it working out. However, don’t run away with the exuberance of the moment. We did background checks as the second stage in our process, and it helped us uncover and identify areas of potential conflict. Do the background checks, speak to former colleagues and bosses. Make sure the partner you have in mind is the good kind of crazy and not the kind that can pull the wool over your eyes and paint a picture that doesn’t match reality.
#3 Map out your dream life
We put together a workshop to figure out if we were aligned, and then set aside two days to go through each question and discuss in detail. Many partnerships begin with bags full of enthusiasm and an earnest intent to tackle the world’s problems. At one point or another reality bites and people’s real intentions in life surface. For the partnership to work in the long term you both need a similar life vision. If you see yourself building a firm for the next 30 years while your business partner is looking to make a quick buck and go surf in Hawaii you will naturally encounter problems sooner or later. It sounds obvious but it’s not - you should be aligned in terms of life values, your definition of success and what life well lived looks like. It’s totally fine to have different likes and dislikes (We certainly do!), but your fundamental values need to match.
#4 Get aligned on Ambition
We might all think we want to change the world, but the effort, time and pace involved look different for each of us according to our ambition. The most important thing for us was whether our levels of ambition matched as it then follows you’ll do whatever it takes to reach your idea of the promised land. It’s a similar but related point to the one above: firstly is the promised land a similar place, and secondly, do you have the same kind of fire in your belly to get there? If you don't, one person will start dragging the other and dead weight is hardly a flight propellant.
#5 Enjoy each other as people
Building a company is hard. There are good days, great days, and also some really shit days. While basic human chemistry can be the beginning of a partnership, we’d cite this last, as sometimes you just need to get to know each other to find out whether your values as people are compatible and if you can lift each other up in the low moments and celebrate shared success.
And finally #6, Good luck!